Unintentionally ended up in a hospital ward today, to visit a friend of a friend who have had all four of her wisdom teeth taken out. Until today I've been lucky enough not to have a reason to visit a public patients' ward.
What I saw and heard was a heart-breaking, painful reminder.
Opposite my friend's friend's ward was an elderly couple, with the wife lying in bed recovering from what seemed to be a serious operation. Next to her bed was her husband, clutching her hand while she was asleep, looking on with an expression between loving concern and aching sorrow. When the wife woke up, she said with desperation, "I don't want to die!"

Perhaps I'm easily moved, but at that point I almost cried. An acknowledged fact finally hit my core: when you marry a person, you also implicitly carry the obligation of watching them die. "Till death do us part". How little this almost trite phrase means to modern marriages. Once again I realise how great a feat my grandparents have achieved, staying together for 60 years, and their love for each other is still going strong.

The story with the couple in the hospital has a happy ending. I looked away, as I fear I might be intruding such an intensely private moment. When the wife was speaking with fear and panic, her husband reassured and calmed her, "You're gonna be OK. The doctors said you're gonna be just fine." Even though I wasn't looking, I'm sure they hugged, ever so gently.